CHP uses bus, semi to recreate fatal crash environment

911 calls reporting the accident between a tour bus and a FedEx truck near Orland.

California Highway Patrol

Head of the CHP Northern Division describes crash excercise

CHP captain describes testing for bus, semi in Orland crash.

California Highway Patrol investigators conduct tests Thursday near the site where a tour bus and FedEx truck crashed last Thursday in Interstate 5 near Orland. The tests featured vehicles similar to those in the wreck driving and braking through the area.

Candles, flowers and messages are left at the crash site off Interstate 5 in Orland where a big rig crashed into a charter bus, killing 10 people April 10.

A bus and FedEx truck pass each other on Interstate 5 near Orland Thursday during a California Highway Patrol test conducted as part of the investigation into the deadly crash between a bus of high school students and a FedEx truck last week. The CHP used similar vehicles to test visibility and braking.

Barely a week after a FedEx semi barreled into a charter bus filled with students, California Highway Patrol investigators staged the scene in Orland to glean insight into the deadly crash.

"It's important to the families (of the victims) that we tell the story of the accident as it happened," said Ruben Leal, head of the CHP's Northern Division, based in Redding.

Officers intermittently shut down I-5 in both directions four times to record video footage and other measurements from both a southbound 2007 Volvo freight truck and a 2014 Setra motor coach on the roadway, said Capt. Todd Morrison, with the CHP. They mimicked the vehicles that collided on the stretch of I-5, between County Road 7 and Highway 32, killing 10 people last Thursday.

Both drivers and eight passengers on the charter bus died. The bus had been ferrying high school students from Southern California to Humboldt State for a campus tour.

A second round of tests examined the braking of the bus and the FedEx truck, he said. Investigators will study the skid marks to try to determine the truck's and bus' speeds, he said.

Officers hope to discover what those final moments were like, as well as determine the speed based on skid marks, Morrison said. He said officers will have to review the test results before they can make further conclusions about the collision.

Morrison said motorists experienced only momentary delays as the tests shut down the freeway briefly. Officers planned the tests about 20 minutes apart to minimize impacts to traffic.

The black boxes in the vehicles were so damaged officers don't know what they'll be able to recover, said Ruben Leal, head of the Northern Division CHP.

CHP also released the 911 calls that came in last Thursday reporting the crash. At least one male who called 911 about the crash told dispatchers he was a passenger on the bus, public information officer Lacey Heitman said.

Leal said officers will head to Los Angeles next week to interview bus passengers.

Morrison said investigators are still researching the maintenance of the bus and the semi, including whether either vehicle's parts were subject to recalls. They also will scrutinize the cell phone records of the drivers, he said.

"We're hoping to find out why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again," he said.

He declined to say whether the FedEx truck applied its brakes during the crash — the NTSB has said it did not find any evidence of braking by the semi before it careened across the median and into the bus.

NTSB lead investigator Robert Aseta said the agency can only make recommendations — it has no enforcement power, he said.

A separate set of tests will be conducted on a Nissan Altima, also hit in the fatal crash, later on. Morrison said the truck and bus were on loan from FedEx and Silverado Stages.